Explore the Popular Edition Map Series

Surveyed between 1912-1923 and first published 1919-1926. Scale is 1:50,000.

The original Ordnance Survey Popular Edition series was conceived before, but
published just after, the First World War. It was the first of Ordnance
Survey’s series to be conceived from the outset as a mass-market product,
and the first to be produced in full colour. The new technology was put
to the test in catering for a wholly new market.
These Popular Edition maps show England and Wales on the threshold of
great change, capturing the point at which the motor car began to define
not only the landscape but also the way in which map-makers represented
it.

A sample from a 1:50,000 scale Popular Edition Map

The original impetus behind the creation of the Ordnance Survey and the
original Old Series maps had been one of military necessity. Although the
maps had soon assumed a more civilian aspect and market, the Ordnance
Survey continued to fulfil an important wartime role. During the First
World War its normal activities were suspended and over 5,000 people were
engaged on military work, producing more than 32 million maps for the war
effort.

The end of the conflict co-incided with another revolution, as dramatic
as that which had swept the country three generations earlier with the
advent of the railways – the increased use of the motor car. By the 1920s,
this new and independent means of transport had helped create an entirely
new market for maps. In 1909, 53,000 cars were registered in the UK:
twenty years later there were over a million. Many who could not afford
(or did not dare) to use a car cycled instead. Britain already had over
280,000 miles of roads on the eve of the First World War and although
these were not of a consistent quality, they were fast being improved.
For the first time, the train companies were faced with a real
competitor.

A sample of a Popular Edition Map

The post-war years also saw increased social mobility,
prosperity and leisure time which helped to encourage Britain’s fledgling
tourism industry. Many of the posters and publicity material produced
at this time by resorts and transport bodies to attract these travellers
rank amongst the finest achievements of British graphic art. More people
were travelling than ever before – and all of them, particularly the
motorists, needed maps.

Responding to this, the Ordnance Survey, under the Director-Generalship of
Colonel Charles Close, began re-surveying the country in 1912 with a view to
producing maps that were both accurate and eye-catchingly designed. After the
war, and guided by the results of public consultation, the one-inch Popular
Edition was launched, with its iconic cover of a cyclist sitting on a hillside
studying a map; a separate 92-sheet Popular Edition series was created for
Scotland and published between 1924 and 1932. Some one-inch district or
tourist maps focussing on specific towns or attractions were produced from the
early 1920s with eye-catching pictorial covers in an attempt to find a wider
market.

Above key for Popular Edition Maps, as displayed on Folded Sheet Maps.

Popular Edition Maps capture the ever-changing landscape of Britain at a
crucial time in its history. The inter-war years arguably saw the emergence
of ‘modern’ Britain. The patterns of development and transport links these
maps reveal are in many cases familiar to the contemporary eye. Much,
however, was about to change, in particular the suburban encroachment into
the countryside and the further expansion of the road network.
The Popular
Edition is a potent record of the Britain that was about to be traded for
the motor car. By an irony, it also provided the British with their first
motoring maps.